What we do

Students and faculty in the departments of Biology and
Geography
at Memorial University are researching the sensitivity of tundra
and treeline ecosystems to climate change in highland areas of
Newfoundland and Labrador. The aims are to better understand these
ecosystems in relation to their local climates and to determine how
they evolved in the past and to predict what will happen to them
under a future, perhaps very different, climate.

Climate Change

Climate is the characteristic weather at a place - its average
and extreme conditions. Variability and change are normal for
climate. In the past, Earth’s climate has fluctuated
naturally between glacial cold periods and tropical hot periods.
Climate changes have usually taken many thousands of years,
although rapid changes have also been recorded. Today, because of
human activities, climate is changing faster than it has for
thousands of years. On average, Earth is heating up. But this
warming is not uniform. Whereas most of the planet has become
warmer, some regions have become cooler - while some are becoming
wetter, others have become drier. For example, over the past 50
years, while the western Arctic warmed, the northwest Atlantic
Ocean, coastal Labrador, and West Greenland became colder.

Ecosystems
are made up of plants and animals and their environments. Climate
is a key environmental control. As the climate changes, so do the
kinds and numbers of plant and animal species, and how they
interact. In highland areas, differences in climate and therefore
of vegetation communities occur over short distances because of the
normal decrease of air temperature with altitude. A climb of only a
few hundred metres takes us from boreal forest to alpine tundra. In
these central Labrador highland
areas some arctic-alpine species are at their southern limit of
occurrence and are therefore rare provincially. These plants are
particularly sensitive to climate change. Highland plant
communities are important to the animals, as they provide food for
caribou and other herbivores. Other changes are occurring which
affect these highland ecosystems. For example, moose are appearing
in the Mealy Mountains, as they expand eastward across central
Labrador. And coyotes have recently invaded the highlands of
western Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park and have
begun to prey on caribou there.

Some of Our
Research Questions

How do highland plant communities respond to a change in
climate? For example, if there is warming will the tree limit
simply move upslope, or will vegetation changes be more complex?
What will happen to tundra plant species and the animals they
support?

What will be the effects of vegetation changes on the birds,
mammals, and insects that are part of this ecosystem? In
particular, what will happen to already threatened woodland caribou
populations, such as the Red Wine and Mealy Mountain herds?

How will climate change affect the expansion of invasive and
introduced non-native species of plants, and insects and other
animals?

How will these changes affect the overall biodiversity of the
region?

How will these changes affect the people who benefit from
highland ecosystems in terms of food, employment, and spiritual
values?

How can we best communicate what we learn about climate change
to the public and to industry and government agencies, as plans are
made for local resource development and utilization?